Running Down to the Riptide
by Snow Glows Blue
Summary: Elrond hates the ocean. (Mermaid AU.)
1. Chapter 1

Elrond hates the ocean.

Maglor and Maedhros don't want him to, but he does. He'll go to the beach with them with minimal resistance because they live in California and they'll bring him along no matter what he says or does, but he never goes anywhere near the water. And they have no such qualms (though of course they don't go swimming, the currents are too strong and it's freezing cold) but his fathers understand his fear, and they don't push him.

Today is foggy rather than windy, which is par for the course for Bodega Bay in the spring, and it's cold enough to seep through Elrond's jacket but not so cold that he can't take off his sneaker; the rocks are sharp, but he can get a better grip if he's barefoot.

So while Maglor and Maedhros throw a Frisbee, Elrond goes exploring.

The tide's in and his tunnel's flooded, which would freak him out if he weren't twenty feet above the water already, and the ridge of crumbling shale is high but no more difficult than he remembers. He's on the other side and out of sight in minutes.

Elrond hates being near the ocean, but even he admits that it's beautiful. He's never seen a beach like on postcards, with fine white sand and palm trees and warm blue water that's calm enough to trust yourself to (Northern California beaches have sand that's coarse and rocky, permanently grey skies, silver water that's cold and choppy with riptides, high cliffs, and the only plants are tough grasses), but there's a dangerous sort of beauty to it all the same.

Even more than that, though, he loves the sense of being alone. The Pacific is huge, the sky infinitely larger, and Elrond is the only living thing in sight. Even the ever-present seagulls don't dare disturb the peace.

And then, Elrond hears the singing.

The words are in a language he doesn't recognize, he thinks it might be Gaelic. The tune starts off quiet, a sweet, simple melody that reminds him of Maglor's lullabies, but it gets steadily louder and steadily more haunting until Elrond can feel tears dripping down his face, cooling quickly in the March air.

The thing is, though, he isn't crying. Not really. There's no pressure behind his eyes, no red runny nose, no corked-shut throat; his eyes aren't even stinging, and he knows without looking that they aren't red. It's the sort of crying that only happens to pretty girls in movies, Elrond thinks, and refuses to follow that train of thought. Instead he closes his eyes, listens to the song, and doesn't wipe the tears away.

The singing abruptly stops. "Hello," says a soft voice from his left. There's a Scottish accent, slight but there. Elrond turns and —

— oh.

He's about thirty yards away, low enough on the rock that he could reach down and touch the ocean if he wanted. Long blond hair reaches his hips, where bronze-tanned skin turns into a long, shining purple tail.

"Hello," he repeats, in a soft voice that again reminds Elrond of Maglor. "My name is Thranduil."

Elrond stands and picks his way down the rock, settling nearer to Thranduil — near enough to the edge of the water to make him nervous, but not so close that he's about to panic. "Hello. I'm Elrond."

The mermaid, because what else could he be, smiles. Not one of the bright sunshine smiles that Elrond sometimes sees on his classmates' faces, but something darker, a puzzle of a smile; Elrond's fingers itch with the need to solve it, and he wishes he'd brought a Rubik's Cube.

The smile slowly fades away as it becomes clear that Elrond isn't going to move any closer. "There's plenty of room here."

He sounds hesitant, like when Maedhros doesn't know how to approach anything to do with emotion, and Elrond almost reflexively reassures him. "It's not you. I'm just scared of water."

He stops, and waits to be laughed at.

But Thranduil's nodding, he understands. Odd, since he's a thing of the sea, but Elrond doesn't question his luck. "As well you should be," Thranduil says. "The ocean is pretty, so people often forget that it's also wild." Bright violet eyes turn away from Elrond's face to watch the churning Pacific, and he's vaguely relieved. "But may I ask why?"

They've only known each other for a few minutes, not counting the singing, and normally Elrond wouldn't say this yet. But something about Thranduil is — disarming is probably the right word, and Elrond finds himself opening up in a way that he usually wouldn't. "My twin brother drowned a few miles down the coast when we were twelve."

Thranduil blinks twice, and says, "Was his name Elros? If it was, then I know him."

And — it was. Elrond can't do anything but nod, and Thranduil slips into the water — "I'll be back in fifteen minutes, wait here!" and vanishes in a flash of gold and violet.

Elrond sits crosslegged on the ledge, and waits for him to return. It's not like there's anything else to do.

When he does return, he's breathless and smiling. And Elros is with him.

It wasn't hard to find him, as he's nearly always in the same place, and a simple "I've found your brother" was enough to convince him to go. Thranduil doesn't usually swim so fast, but Elrond is even happier now than Thranduil could ever have guessed.

He waits in the water, watches the twins' reunion, and is happy for them.

(It's not enough and he knows it.)

(But Elrond is smiling now too, and it's so beautiful that Thranduil refuses to push his luck.)

People who drown in the ocean become mermaids.

They never age another day, but they can be killed, and they remember little of their previous lives. Nearly all know their names, and most have another name as well, a few flashes of image. For a few, life on land is completely blank.

Thranduil knows that his father was a woodworker. He knows his own name, and he thinks his father's might have been Oro-something. Both of them smiled rarely but beautifully.

(Thranduil's smiles come easy now, and Oro-something is a name on a stone and barely a thought in his son's mind.)

Elros knows his name and his brother. He knows cream-and-coffee skin, dark hair, grey eyes, long fingers skilled at puzzles and chess, a carefree laugh that hasn't been heard in four years.

(Somewhere there's a hazy image of a raven-haired man with clear eyes and a sapphire voice. But Elros doesn't think on that.)


	2. Chapter 2

The next time they meet, it's Elrond who's singing.

Well, not singing, not really. Chanting. Thranduil doesn't recognize the language, though Elros probably would. The song is soft and thoughtful, not as emotional as a mermaid's song, and it fits Elrond perfectly.

"What is that?" he asks, and Elrond's muscles tense. "The song, I mean."

He stops singing. Thranduil almost — but not quite — regrets speaking. "It's a Hebrew prayer. Its called the V'ahavta." He looks sad again, but doesn't say what's bothering him. "How's Elros?"

"Normal. He's been much happier than usual for the last three weeks." Since he saw you, Thranduil doesn't say, but he thinks it.

Thranduil braces himself on the edge of the rock and pushes himself upward until he's sitting next to Elrond. "You're closer to the water than you were last time," he says.

Elrond smiles like bottled sunlight. "The ocean doesn't scare me as much anymore." He reaches out and threads their fingers together; Thranduil imagines what those finger would feel like carding through his hair and flushes at the thought. "I actually asked to come today," Elrond continues. "Maglor was thrilled, said it meant I was healing. I didn't say how much I wanted to see you."

Oh.

Thranduil doesn't grin like an idiot, but he wants to.

"I missed you too."

They talk for hours before Maedhros calls and Elrond has to leave.

For humans, love is a thing that grows and develops over time.

Mermaids are different. When you see them, you know.

There's a story in the Aegean about a girl who fell in love with a dolphin. They were apart for many years, until the girl threw herself into the ocean, to die with her love even if she couldn't live with her, as became the first mermaid.

In the Bering Straight the mermaids tell of how a boy fell into the icy sea, and returned to his family with the tail of an orca. He left them for the depths of the ocean four days later, and without his knowledge his betrothed followed; she drowned as well, swimming behind him, and when she too was reborn a mermaid they lived together in the realm of Sedna forevermore.

They have a tale in the Central Pacific of how a young woman went diving and didn't come home, and when her lover went to look for her body he instead found a mermaid bearing her face. Knowing she would never return to him he drowned in her arms — and when he woke up, transformation complete, they were never apart again.

But in every ocean of the world, to drown for your love is the greatest gesture possible.


	3. Chapter 3

"You and Elros wear the same necklace," Thranduil says a month later when they next meet. "What does it mean?"

It's an odd question, but not one that he's never heard before. "Star of David. We're Jewish." Elrond pauses. "Well, I am. Ros might not be." Thranduil tilts his head to the side like he doesn't really understand, but Elrond doesn't elaborate; instead he says, "My father gave them to us. It's one of the only memories of him I still have."

They haven't known each other long, but Elrond considers Thranduil at least as close as a friend he's known for years, and hopefully it'll become more. Not that he has much experience with either of those things.

"What was he like?" Thranduil moves closer, just a bit. The ocean is calmer than it usually is, so they're nearer the edge than Elrond would normally be comfortable with.

He has to think about that before he answers, pulling back information he doesn't think about often.

"The was blond and tall, and he had strong hands. He worked at the port and was gone for work a lot, but when he was around he was kind and intelligent. He was the one who gave Elros and me our love of reading. He was Jewish like us, but our mother wasn't. When Dad was gone she'd take Elros and me to synagogue anyway." He looks down at the ocean when he says, "When I was seven he vanished. No note, I looked, no phone call, I waited for one — just went to the marina and never came back."

Elrond likes to believe that Eärandil died, that he didn't just leave them. But he knows that probably wasn't what happened.

Thranduil moves closer still, pressing against Elrond's skin. He's not as warm as Elrond would've thought. "I don't remember much about my father either," he says. "He looked like me. He didn't smile much, but when he did it — it was like the sun. He was a crafter, worked with wood. I think his name might have been Oro-something but I'm not sure."

How long has it been, that Thranduil cannot remember his own father's name? "I'm sorry." He leans his head on Thranduil's shoulder and closes his eyes.

"It's not as sad as you seem to think," Thranduil says. "It's actually pretty normal. If you ever…" He doesn't say the words, but they're thinking the same thing. "If you ever, you won't remember much either. Just the things that really mattered."

Elrond was planning on joining his brother and his best (only) friend, once he'd finished college. But this is new information, and it changes things.

It changes things a lot.

There's a faint sound of yelling from the beach side of the ridge. "That was probably Maglor," Elrond says, though it probably wasn't. "I should go."

He stands and he leaves, and he doesn't see Thranduil looking on.

When Elrond was seven Eärandil vanished, and Elwing went mad with grief; at least, that was the official explanation. She'd hardly been stable before. The twins would've learned to take care of themselves if it hadn't been for Maglor and Maedhros (Knights in shining armor, the twins called them at first, before they transitioned to Dad for Maedhros and Daddy for Maglor).

Elrond and Elros were alike, and they were not alike. Both were intelligent, extremely so, but Elros loved math and physics while Elrond loved biology and language. Elros saw patterns everywhere while Elrond could solve near-impossible puzzles in minutes; Maedhros used to tell them apart by mentioning Fibonacci and listening to Elros and only Elros gush.

And then, when the twins were twelve, Elros fell into the Pacific Ocean and drowned.

Elrond missed two weeks of school, wore black every day for more than a year. He did his bar mitzvah brilliantly but alone, and his caretakers worried about him.

The twins had been each other's only confidents, only real friends, and after Elros died his brother made no move to get closer to anyone else. Eventually his classmates stopped reaching out. His grades never dropped, he never distanced himself from Maglor or Maedhros, but this much isolation couldn't possibly be healthy.

And then, a few months after his sixteenth birthday, Elrond came home from the beach with them noticeably happier. Maglor didn't understand why, but he certainly didn't question it.

Today he's — not grieving again, per se, but peensive. And Maglor can't get him to say why.


	4. Chapter 4

It isn't until six weeks later, when the sky is clear and blue for once, that Thranduil sees Elrond again, and when he does the human is — crying?

"What's wrong?" He pulls himself up on the rock next to Elrond.

Elrond doesn't answer, just sobs. "Elrond, tell me what's wrong." He leans against Elrond's shoulder; he's reacted well to touch in the past. It pays off when the crying slows, Elrond wrapping his arms around Thranduil's frame, and he says, "Nothing's wrong, really, I just —"

He stops, choking in a breath.

"You just?" Thranduil doesn't believe for a moment that nothing's wrong.

He closes his eyes. "I miss my brother."

Thranduil has no idea what he means. "Elros says he saw you a couple days ago."

The tears come faster. He shouldn't have said anything. "He's not my brother anymore, though. My brother loved math and numbers and patterns. My brother was obsessed with the Fibonacci sequence. My brother was on debate team with me, and he argued points he would never agreed with in a million years to see if he really understood them. My brother was the single most intelligent person I've ever known."

That… doesn't sound like Elros. At all.

But Elrond doesn't give Thranduil a chance to think before he continues. "This isn't my brother," he says. "I talk about math and he doesn't light up. We've had two entire conversations and he hasn't tried to argue with me once."

And oh shit, he's crying again.

"He asked what Fibonacci was," Elrond whispers, and he sounds so vulnerable that Thranduil can't help but want to take care of him.

Thranduil leans forward and comforts his — his everything, in the only way he can think to: by kissing him, a quick breathless series of contacts that leaves Elrond gasping for breath. "I love you," Thranduil whispers, and kisses him again.

When they break apart for good, not just for air, twelve minutes have passed.

"I love you." Thranduil says it again, and he means it.

"I love you too."

But Elrond stands, and picks up his shoes.

"But I don't want to forget."

And he climbs down the rock and runs through the tunnel and disappears.

Elrond sits down next to Maglor, leans his head on his father's shoulder, and closes his eyes.

"Do you want to leave?" Maedhros asks, in the soft voice it took him years to learn.

Their son nods. "Yes, please."

Maglor is worried, he can tell. Maedhros is worried too. But their son needs them now, and the questions can wait.

Maedhros carries Elrond home.


	5. Chapter 5

It's one-thirty. Elrond can't sleep.

He's tried to just close his eyes and wait. He tried pacing around his room, he's tried opening the windows. Nothing's working.

He can smell the ocean from here, though his room is on the wrong side of the house to see it. Maybe that would help? The walk would clear his thoughts, if nothing else.

There's a conveniently placed trellis under his second-story window. He's out and halfway to the beach in no time at all.

He doesn't go through the tunnel, though the tide is out; it's the only place he's ever seen Thranduil, and he came here to clear his thoughts, not to muddy them further. Instead he turns right when he reaches the sand and walks down to the other rocks, the ridges of dark grey shale, not so high but much longer.

It takes him about three minutes, once he gets to the rocks, to realize he isn't alone.

The mermaid isn't Thranduil, though they look similar. Thranduil's face is sharp, and this boy's is both softer and harder at once — softer because where Thranduil is made up of lines and angles, the boy is made up of soft curves; harder because Elrond has never seen Thranduil angry.

"What's your name?" Elrond asks cautiously.

The boy blinks, like he wasn't expecting that. The anger flickers. "Legolas." It comes back full force, burning bright in green eyes. "You're Elrond. The one Thranduil's in love with."

He manages to make it sound terrifying, though when he drowned he couldn't have been more than eleven.

"Y-yes."

There's a flash of pearlescent white scales and before Elrond really knows what's happening his head's below water and — oh God please I'm sorry what did I do — it's like all his worst nightmares combined, ever since he was twelve they've all been drowning but dreams pale beside the real thing — please God help please help help HELP — his lungs are on fire, his chest is about to explode —

— everything goes black.

Legolas doesn't understand. Not really.

But he understands enough. He understands that Thranduil loves this human, though he's not sure why, and he understands that Thranduil, his Thranduil, went to the shore two weeks ago and came home heartbroken.

He understands what it's like to be left forever by the one he loves, and he won't let Thranduil suffer his own fate.

(He doesn't think of a red-haired merchant's son in Crete. He doesn't relive the memory of callused hands and a deep voice and sun-bronzed skin. He doesn't think of watching his Gimli marry a human woman and live out a mortal life. And it certainly doesn't still hurt, hundreds of years later.)

Yes, Legolas definitely understands enough.


	6. Chapter 6

When Elrond's eyes snap open again, he can finally breathe.

He swims upward and doesn't meet anyone on the way, which is good, but — the rock on the beach is smooth granite, not rough and cracked shale, the sand is too pale, the air is too warm, the sky is too blue (it should all be grey to match his scales, he remembers dimly), and the air is too still. There's no spark of recognition, no flicker of Yes, I know this.

Elrond looks out over the water — so calm it can't possibly be the ocean — and he doesn't cry.

Thranduil watches, and stays in the water, and waits.

When Elrond dives back down and makes for north, Thranduil catches up within minutes. "Where are you going?"

"Home." Elrond keeps going, but Thranduil can see the recognition is his expression. "North is colder, I don't know where I learned that —" common enough "— but it is."

Thranduil doesn't understand Elrond's sudden change of heart, but he can at least show his love the way.

"Home is west, Elrond. Not north."

Elrond looks at him, unsure, but then he nods and follows him.

Home, apparently, is an underwater cave, worn into the stone by millennia of salt and churning motion. It's small but it's just the two of them, and that first night they fall asleep in one another's arms.

("I love you," Thranduil whispers as his eyes close, and Elrond says nothing. But this isn't what he wanted.)

Time passes.

Elrond sees Elros again, and he knows that this is not the brother he remembers.

Elros seems confused by his silence and dull eyes, and Elrond wonders how close he is to the brother his twin remembers.

He finds the beach from the hazy images he still has. The sand is rocky grey, the water choppy, the sky like stainless steel. It's colder than the water he awoke in, but not so cold that it bothers him.

Elrond knows this place. He only has one memory, of wooden steps and rocky cliff (and lips brushing together and soft I love yous that were meant and not just said), but still he knows it as intimately as he knows his own skin.

He sits there in the ridge in perfect silence.

When Thranduil arrives it takes Elrond a few moments to notice, but notice he does.

You took my life and stole my memories, he wants to say. He doesn't.

"Elrond?"

Thranduil sounds more tired than anything.

"Why did you follow me?" It comes out harsher than Elrond meant it to.

Silence. There isn't really any answer to that.

"I —" He's choking back tears, Elrond can hear it in his voice. He doesn't feel as guilty about those tears as e probably should. "I love you."

Like that solves anything. "I know you do."

He tries to sound comforting, but winds up just sounding dead.

Thranduil reaches out to touch his shoulder — he jerks away like it's scalding.

"I'm sorry." Barely more than a whisper. Elrond pretends not to hear.

Silence.

"I'll go," Thranduil says, and the only sound is the swish of a body through water.

Elrond stays where he is and stares at the shore with unfocused eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

He remembers a name, Elrond Uriah Imladris.

He remembers a tall man with bright red hair and a missing hand. He remembers an ink-haired man with soft skin and a voice like velvet.

He remembers a brother, broad-shouldered and strong, with a head for numbers and a love of patterns. He remembers shared birthdays and pinky promises and a secret language. He remembers asking, 'For always and always?' and always hearing 'Of course.' until the one day he asked and he didn't, because Elros wasn't alive to answer. He remembers standing at a funeral, crying in math class, looks of pity rather than sympathy, sitting alone at lunch — they all said that they'd be there for him, but when it came down to it, nobody really wanted to spend their lunchtime with the grieving boy who barely spoke.

He remembers chanting in Hebrew, remembers graceful script on parchment (ךאהבת) (V'ahavta, meaning And you shall love). He remembers a bar mitzvah, a coming-of-age ceremony that should have been shared but wasn't.

He remembers a steep rock buffeted by a churning sea, remembers a ledge by the ocean. He remembers long blond hair and iridescent purple scales.

He remembers a series of gentle kisses by the edge of the water. He remembers hearing "I love you" and saying it in turn; he remembers meaning it.

He remembers a young blond mermaid holding his head beneath the waves and crushing the air from his lungs.

He doesn't remember the house he lived in, three minutes' walk from the beach.

He doesn't remember his favorite movies, Dead Poet's Society and Star Trek: Wrath of Khan. He doesn't remember his favorite books, Series of Unfortunate Events and Ender's Game.

He doesn't remember Maedhros waking him up after a nightmare; he doesn't remember Maglor's songs. He doesn't remember the afternoons he spent helping Elwing bake, or Eärandil teaching him the names of the stars.

He doesn't remember the Fibonacci Sequence or the Golden Ratio.

He doesn't remember how he wanted to be an architect.

He doesn't remember how he used to love puzzles.

He doesn't even remember what a Rubik's Cube is.

It takes them nearly a day to find Elrond's shoes, laid neatly on the sand.

"Why?" Maedhros's voice is broken, and the shards cut Maglor's heart as surely as broken glass would cut his fingertips. "Why would he —" Maedhros swallows. "Why."

If Maglor weren't still in shock, the dullness that settles in Nelyo's tone at that last "why" would terrify him, as well it should.

He thinks distantly that it was probably for much the same reason that Amrod covered himself in gasoline and lit a match. But he doesn't say that aloud.


End file.
